Groovy.
To this day, we’re not entirely sure what killed Sam Raimi’s fourth Spider-Man film. While the remarkable goofiness of the third movie may have had a hand in it’s sequel’s demise, it appears as though the film was far enough in development that a script and storyboards were drafted.
Recently, artist Jeffrey Henderson, who worked on some of these storyboards, posted artwork to his website showcasing a few scenes that might have been in the film, as well as potential villains.
Notably featured is Vulture, who had been rumored to be the film’s main villain, and be played by John Malkovich.
There are also a number of very interesting drawings showing Spider-Man taking Mysterio, another classic foe, to the police.
Naturally this has raised a lot of questions, so i09 spoke with Henderson on how this villain would factor into the film.
Henderson revealed that the movie would begin with “a montage of C and D- list villains that [we knew] would never be used as main antagonists: Mysterio, the Shocker, the Prowler, the old school-onesie-wearing version of the Rhino, maybe even the Stilt Man, etc.”
He also revealed that Mysterio would have been played by none other than the Evil Dead star Bruce Campbell.
As a close friend of the film’s director, Campbell had a cameo in every prior Spider-Man film, so Mysterio would have been his bit part for the fourth film.
We may never know what exactly went wrong with Spider-Man 4, but if this artwork is any indication, the film showed promise. And who knows, maybe Marvel and Sony will throw Campbell a bone with Homecoming.
Never forget: 5/04/07.
